The Now Playing overlay burns the currently playing song title and artist onto the video frame that SignalCaster sends to RTMP-based streaming services. Viewers on YouTube, Twitch, Mixcloud, or anywhere else you stream can see what’s playing without any separate graphics application.
The overlay is not available for Icecast streams, which are audio-only.
Open the Settings drawer, click Appearance…, then click Edit Overlay Layout…. This opens the Overlay & Schedule editor in a separate window with a live preview at the top of the Now Playing tab and controls below it.
The overlay reads the currently playing song from a text file — by default, Misc/System/current_song.txt inside your Station folder. AutoCast writes the current track info to this file whenever a new track starts. Click Browse… next to the Source File field to choose a different file if your setup uses a non-standard location.
The text file typically contains multiple fields separated by a delimiter character: for example, James Taylor<tab>Sweet Baby James<tab>Fire and Rain. The Delimiter popup lets you tell SignalCaster how those fields are separated. Options include Tab (the default), comma, pipe, and semicolon.
The Display popup controls which fields from the delimited text are shown. For a file with artist, title, and album fields separated by tabs, you can choose to show artist and title, title only, or all three fields. Use the Sample Text field at the top to test how your actual file format will look — type in a sample line using your real delimiter and watch the preview update.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Source File | Path to the text file containing current song info. Defaults to your Station’s current_song.txt. |
| Delimiter | How fields are separated in the source file. Tab is the AutoCast default. |
| Display | Which combination of fields to show on screen. |
| Show "Now Playing:" prefix | Adds the words "Now Playing:" before the song text. Optional cosmetic choice. |
| Font | The typeface used for the overlay text. |
| Size | Font size in points. The preview updates live as you adjust this. |
| Color | Text color. Click the color swatch to open the color picker. |
| H / V sliders | Horizontal and vertical position of the text on the video frame. |
The Background checkbox enables a semi-transparent colored bar behind the text to improve legibility over busy video backgrounds. When enabled, four additional sliders control the bar’s horizontal position, vertical position, width, and height. The Alpha slider controls the bar’s opacity — 0 is fully transparent, 1 is fully opaque.
A dark semi-transparent background bar with white text is the most readable combination over any background image. Set alpha to around 0.6, use Helvetica-Bold or Arial-BoldMT at 24pt, and position it near the bottom of the frame.
The live preview pane at the top of the Now Playing tab shows exactly how the overlay will appear on the video frame, including the background bar, position, and font. As you adjust any slider or field, the preview updates instantly. The preview uses the sample text you’ve entered rather than waiting for a real track to come in — set your sample text to something representative before fine-tuning positions.